[HakuG] wanted to make a watch for his roommates, and had a design project due. He killed two birds with one stone, and then some. The result is a classic word clock, but with a refined all-wood look that’s also small enough to wear on your wrist.
Nothing good ever comes out right the first time, and the log of [HakuG]’s different versions is full of different attempts, all of them just fine in their own right, but none of them “perfect”. Kudos to [HakuG] for sticking with it and refining the project far past the initial prototype stage to something that really looks like a finished product.
Of course we’ve covered word clocks before. Heck, we’ve even seen a beautiful wooden one. But we’re pretty sure that this is the first wooden word-clock watch we’ve ever written up, and it’s surely one of the nicest.
Thanks [Paul Hein] for the link!
First time I’ve seen someone get wood for a Watch. usually they watch to get wood.
I’m wondering if that’s charlieplexed Nano Leds or an LCD with wood screening ?
If only there was a linked story which talks about it…
I can see how someone not accustomed to imgur might have missed that detail, with the way the feed collapses.
Nope. He says he didn’t use charlieplexing because it would make the circuit too complicated.
SMH ONE REE. I can’t be the only one that tried to figure out the language before realising :)
There also seems to be kickstarter going on for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/182337072/wooden-word-watch
“The biggest problem is moving to manufacturing. There is a high upfront cost to a lot of manufacturing plants, especially due to the nature of custom watches and CNC milling. Earlier, I did all of the CNC milling and PCB soldering myself, but spending an entire day building a watch isn’t something I can do at scale.”
Ok, so how do you plan to scale this exactly?
Well, both full scale PCB manufacturing, laser cutting, and CNC shops exist, so I’d imagine that could be highly leveraged when it comes to his build. Elecrow would probably build them for $10-15/board, but idk how much it would be to get the base milled.
After that, it looks like assembly is only a few steps, and most of the time looks to be waiting for glue to dry. No doubt he could get a CM to put it all together for him for less than $70-100 landed (obviously depending on quantity built).
Having lived in the electronics world for a couple of years now, my biggest concern with his build is reliability. It is such a PITA to have to deal with warranty returns because you didn’t engineer it well enough out of the gate. And for a first project like this, getting it right on v1 is highly unlikely.
Setting aside my concerns about the design, outside contract manufacturers could certainly be leveraged if there is enough volume. The hurdle and concern I have here seems to be a combination of lack of the creator having dealt with any of these manufacturers before combined with the design not being optimized for manufacturing. In conjunction with a rather aggressive timetable for delivery. I still maintain that using wood is aesthetically gimmicky and may also be aesthetically pleasing but is a terrible material to use for a watch body as a practical material.
What about FCC testing? That also has to be addressed.
This product is a neat although not really novel idea but it also seems like the creator is being unrealistic about what moving from single scale, one per day builds to assembly production actually entails and costs. At least they list it as a potential problem but then they sort of completely glaze over it as if it’s not really a concern at all?
As long as people understand they are not buying a product or making an investment but rather putting money forward with a hope of possibly something in return then I guess that at least is upfront about it?
I also tend to think that it is a sort of luxury item. The price is going to be high (over $300) he does not need to sell hundreds of thousands just hundreds. If cost do not get terrible then churning out 10-15 a week will pay the rent.
Now I have been intending to make myself a watch for some time. I have a (stupid) rule; New job->New watch. I’ve always done this. But since I got laid off two years ago, and started my own company, building electronics prototypes, there was only one logical conclusion: I have to build my own watch. Indecision has prevented me from coming up with a satisfactory plan. I think I have one now.
Wrist-mounted word clock? I love it. Probably not going to be wood though. Now, can I do it with RGB LEDs? That would be a challenge.
Hmmm…RGB…well…in theory…you could put a collage of different colored filters over where you want the words to appear. Then set the RGB LEDs to match the color when you want them to disappear and contrast when you want them to appear. Then overlay the whole thing with the word panel.
There are some super tiny ws2812 compatibles now… I bought some 3535 ones a while back, and I now they even make 2020 ones. That would be a good candidate for this.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3341
Yay! APA102 (simple SPI-like timing and high refresh rate) and in a tiny package. Perfect! I’m getting excited now. Now to source direct from China :) I feel a roughed out PCB coming on.
What about using an oled display as background illumination?
http://www.buydisplay.com/default/serial-spi-1-5-inch-color-oled-display-128×128-graphic-module-ssd1351
Not a bad hack, and top marks for going back to it and redoing the things that you didn’t like first time round!
Kickstarter people would throw barrels of money at this.
That watch looks GREAT. Really really good for a homemade watch.
It seems to look great until it gets wet like most watches do. Wood doesn’t really take kindly to that and it does not appear to be fully waterproof either?
He soaked it in CA glue, which is kinda waterproof. I would have just oiled it: non-toxic and waterproof enough.
CA glue is hardly going to magically impart IP68 water resistance though. You have to do that by design. There are compelling engineering reasons why watchmakers generally do not start by making the watch body out of wood. One also has to consider the interface between the watch body and the internals. Throwing CA glue at that is not a well engineered decision for much short of a prototype.
Now it there only was a way to make wood water resistant… :(
Splatoon clickbait?
https://hackaday.io/project/21079-wordwatch
I’ve been having kits for a word watch since two yeas for sale. If anybody is interested: http://du-kannst-mitspielen.de/elektronik/bausatz-wortarmbanduhr/
The side is in German, but if you send my a mail I’ll answer in english. I’ve also wooden cases for these clocks in walnut or beech.